<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Fostering Millie by NervousAsexual</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28207533">Fostering Millie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual'>NervousAsexual</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Half-Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Half-Life Secret Santa 2020, Headcrabs (Half-Life), M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mentions of animal fighting, therapy animals</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:21:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28207533</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gordon wants to foster an injured headcrab. Barney wants nothing to do with it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barney Calhoun/Gordon Freeman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fostering Millie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=aresenolite">aresenolite</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was afraid my Half-Life Secret Santa wouldn't like the first story I wrote... so I wrote another one based on his <a href="https://black-mesa-slut-voice.tumblr.com/post/636702084971085824/and-here-we-have-millie-another-sweet-lil-crab">adopted headcrab who is the most adorable headcrab I have ever seen.</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>The awkward conversations started almost immediately after cohabitation began.</p>
  <p>*Lamarr can't hurt you,* Gordon told him</p>
  <p>"Yeah, I know that." Barney had been half-asleep on the couch, and being kept awake to talk about the headhumper was not exactly his idea of an enjoyable afternoon.</p>
  <p>*But you afraid.* Gordon gave him a sad smile.</p>
  <p>"I'm not afraid of her. I just... have a healthy sense of self-preservation."</p>
  <p>*I worry.*</p>
  <p>"Christ, Gordon, don't you got bigger things to worry about? Like maybe other, still-beaked headcrabs. And hunters. And... and, I don't know, whether or not there are antlions in your back yard."</p>
  <p>*Yes.* Gordon nodded. *Also you.*</p>
  <p>Yeah, Barney thought, that checked out. If they gave prizes for worrying Gordon would have enough medals to deflect strider fire.</p>
  <p>*All?* Gordon asked, accompanied by a sign that Barney didn't immediately recognize. He propped himself up on his elbows and squinted as Gordon repeated it more slowly. The sign for head, which turned into a C-shape, and... bite. Head-bite.</p>
  <p>Even the sign made him wary. "Yes, all headcrabs. They all will try to scoop out your brains for dinner, and I hate that. Therefore I hate all headcrabs."</p>
  <p>Gordon pressed his lips together in a tight line, his forehead furrowing.</p>
  <p>"Oh, god, Gordon. What did you do now?"</p>
  <p>*Nothing,* Gordon signed, then shook his head and sighed. *Not nothing. Adopt...*<br/>Barney's stomach dropped.</p>
  <p>*No!* Gordon looked panicked. *Not forever.* He paused, eyes flitting back and forth the way he did when he'd forgotten a sign. *Foster,* he finally spelled out.</p>
  <p>"Cool. Cool cool cool." Barney got up and folded the lap blanket he'd been snuggled beneath. "I'm sure you'll make some headhumper very happy."</p>
  <p>*Where...?*</p>
  <p>"I'm not sure. Somewhere far away from you and your new adoptee."</p>
  <p>*Foster.*</p>
  <p>"Whatever."</p>
  <p>*Barney, please.* As he started for the bedroom--he'd just grab a couple changes of clothes, sleep literally anywhere but here--Gordon grabbed his arm to stop him. *Listen?*</p>
  <p>Part of him wanted to say "Nope!" and then proceed to "Nope" as hard as possible out the nearest window, but Gordon's big sad eyes looked even bigger and sadder behind those thick glasses. Barney sighed. Truly he was a sucker of the highest caliber.</p>
  <p>*Short time,* Gordon signed rapidly. *Headcrab fighting group. Got hurt. Not me,* he added as Barney stared at him in even greater alarm. *Headcrab hurt. Needs help. We take, heal, find new home, then done.* Gordon gave him even bigger, sadder eyes, and Barney got the slightest feeling that he was being manipulated and the stronger feeling that he had achieved levels of sucker-ness that mere mortals could only dream of. *Please? Short time.*</p>
  <p>Shit. Barney sat back down on the couch so hard that his knees cracked. That was all he needed, he thought. Another Lamarr, but this one in his house, jumping out at him when he least expected it, giving him a stroke or an anuerism or something. "Please tell me you can take it back or say no or..." The look on Gordon's face said everything. "Dammit, Gordon, you know how much I hate those things."</p>
  <p>Shamefaced, Gordon nodded at the floor.</p>
  <p>"I just... why? Why would you do that?"</p>
  <p>*Very sick. I felt bad. Not trouble--sleep whole time-period. Probably.*</p>
  <p>He should have known. He should have known something like this would happen.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>If you explained...</em>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He cut that thought off right there. Explained what? That he hated how jumpy the damn things made him, even though he'd spent the last twenty years living around the things? That he could stare down a Combine elite soldier, but that a critter the size and shape of a sack of flour scared the hell out of him? Yeah, right.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. "You say it's sick?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon nodded vigorously.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And it'll probably sleep the whole time."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Another aggressive nod.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Christ." He put his head in his hands. "You'll keep it away from me?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gentle fingers slipped into his hand and squeezed, cold against his face.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You're gonna be the death of me, Gordon." He didn't look up. He didn't want to see Gordon's explanations or apologies right now. "Whatever. As long as it stays the hell away from me I don't care what you do with it."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>For a moment there was nothing. Then a skinny arm hooked around his shoulder and squeezed.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Goddammit. He was a sucker of a level that until now had been only theoretical.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The day Gordon brought the headcrab home he stayed in the bedroom. If the thing was as quiet as Gordon swore it was, then he should be able to pretend nothing had changed, right? He would spend more time out, go spend a few days at White Forest, get out of the house for a while. It would be good for him. But damned if he didn't resent it...</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He curled up under the blanket, held his pillow over his head, and tried not to think about headcrabs. It worked for all of five or ten seconds. For the next five or ten seconds, or actually the next five or ten minutes or the next couple of hours he thought quite hard about headcrabs.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>God, did he need a beer.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>How long had it been? He wasn't sure. Probably long enough that Gordon had gotten the thing squared away. He'd just walk out to the kitchen, grab a beer, walk back to the bedroom--wait, shit, <em>close</em> <em>the bedroom door behind him</em>, walk out to the kitchen, grab a beer, return to the bedroom, and get drunk.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Hmm. He was going to need more than the one beer.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>It was fine, he thought. He'd step out of the house for a minute and go down the street to the guy who sold him the beer in the first place. The man made all his alcohol himself and stored it in whatever he found handy, which made some of it taste a little funny, but if it meant Barney could just strap himself to an oil drum of sweet, mind-numbing booze, then by god he would tolerate it.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He closed the door firmly behind him, nodded decisively, and walked quickly through to the kitchen. Gordon was sitting at the table, back to him, and Barney touched his shoulder on the way past so he wouldn't be startled. This only partially worked. Gordon was successfully not startled. Barney, who found himself staring down at a headcrab on his kitchen table, did not have the same success.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Without thinking he threw himself at Gordon just to get him away from it. He'd seen so many friends get headcrabbed over the years and if it happened to Gordon it would absolutely destroy him. But Gordon caught him with surprising ease and set him back on his feet.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*This is Millie,* he signed, and pointed at the headcrab.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>His first instinct was to grab the nearest bat-like object and grand-slam the headhumper into next week, but it was already trying to make a getaway. Before it could escape Gordon grabbed it around the middle like it was a housecat and not a dangerous predator. He sat her back down on the table.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>She was a dark-colored one, because of course Gordon would bring home a poisonous headcrab, and she sat on her rear just like a slightly slouched back of flour with one giant talon and eighteen tiny beaks just waiting for the taste of flesh. Somebody, maybe Gordon, had tied a lavender bow around her like you'd put on a baby or a small dog.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Not poison,* Gordon signed. *Is v-o-l-k-o-v.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Whatever that means." He looked at the head crab and she looked back at him. "What happened to her, uh..." He gestured at the place where her left talon should be and where there was instead only a short gray stump.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon's face darkened. *Infection. Bad people made her fight.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>This was how Barney interpreted his signs, anyway, because while he wasn't sure what some of those signs were he suspected they weren't all meant for polite company. "I thought you were going to keep her away from me."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Distracted. Sorry.* Gordon tucked the little bugger under his arm and awkwardly signed around her. *We'll go.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>They headed for the laundry room and Barney went to the fridge and stood with the door open as he stared blindly in at what they had. It was okay, he tried to tell himself. If he had to live with a headcrab he was glad it was one that wasn't moving too fast, and at least it meant he wouldn't have to go into the laundry room during her stay.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The first time it happened, about a week after Millie came to live with them, he thought it was an accident. He was lying on the couch, half-dozing again, when suddenly he noticed movement under the table.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>Headcrab.</em>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He flinched himself right off the couch and grabbed the baseball bat he'd acquired for this very purpose. His joints ached as he bent down to see, and yes, it was in fact Millie crawling around under the table.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Gordon!" he shouted, holding the bat out in front of him like that might deter her. "Your friend!"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And Gordon emerged from the bedroom, looking equally sleepy and beady-eyed without his glasses, and stood blinking in the hall.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Barney?* he signed.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"The freaking headhumper is out!"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon blinked once, ducked down to see under the table, and with a double-take that would make pre-Combine comedians proud he ran over. He slid into the table on his knees, catching Millie as she went to crawl away. Barney watched until the laundry room door was safely latched before dropping the bat and leaning heavily on the table.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"It's not funny, Gordon."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon stopped at the edge of the kitchen and gave Barney a puzzled frown. *No,* he signed. *Not funny.* After another moment, *Why funny? I don't understand.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"A grown man, scared witless by something small enough to punt. Big joke, right?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*No. Not right.* Gordon took a cautious step over. *Someone laughs at you?*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The adrenaline in him had started to slow down. Now he just leaned against the table, feeling rotten. "Yeah. I mean, I get it. Lamarr's not a threat. That one's... probably not a threat. It's funny to watch somebody jump at something that is so non-threatening." He picked his head up to glare at Gordon. "But I spent twenty years looking over my shoulder to keep from ending up like all those people in Black Mesa.That's the only reason I'm not fucking dead."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon didn't look away from him, just frowned and took another step forward.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Not funny,* he signed. *Absolutely not.* He held out a hand for Barney to take. *Sad. Sorry. I love you.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He didn't have the energy to be angry. He reached out and gave Gordon's hand a squeeze and let it go.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*I forgot close door,* he signed, but he looked doubtful. *Never again. Illegal. I go to jail. Criminal.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>That made him laugh a little. "No, Millie's the one I want to go to jail. You I want to keep around."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon made a big, slow, expressive nod, the Gordon equivalent of a dry, slightly sarcastic "Ah." *Millie can't jump,* he signed, looking more serious. *Helps?*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>If it were true that Millie couldn't jump that would be great, but headcrabs were never his most trusted animal companion. "Maybe a little."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon smiled and came up to hug him slowly, giving him plenty of time to back away, and Barney let him do it.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The second time it happened he knew for a fact that it wasn't an accident. He'd checked the door himself when Gordon went out to do a lot of complicated science things that Barney didn't really understand, even wiggled the door back and forth in its frame to be sure it was good and closed. He had a new-to-him Mac Bolan novel he'd found in the back of a grocery story and it was a warm sunny day and come hell or high water he was going to enjoy it.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was stretched out on the couch reading quietly aloud when it happened. He turned the page to start a new chapter, he glanced up to see what time it was--even twenty years post-apocalypse he was still checking for clocks that didn't exist--and saw it: the dark shape hunched on the floor.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>It was Millie, and she was sitting on her rear on the floor by the couch, looking up at him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Something about the lack of movement and her being out in the open made him not jump as hard as he might have done. He fumbled with the book, grabbed at it with both hands, until finally backhanding it out of his grasp entirely. It landed with a <em>thump</em> beside Millie, and she fell over backwards.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He started to laugh but she got back up and started making those rattling hisses that headcrabs made when they were prepared to strike. He grabbed for the baseball bat, just barely avoided knocking it over too, and was ready to smack her when he realized she wasn't even paying attention to him anymore. All of her focus was on the book.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Did I startle you?" he asked. She jumped like she'd forgotten he was there and turned back toward him, gingerly placing her weight on the little stump where her front talon should have been. "Sorry. Didn't mean to."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>She just looked up at him. Or did she? Did headcrabs even have eyes?</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Gordon said you were a fighting crab," he said, more to himself than to her. "That's how out of it I am, I didn't even know that was a thing. Seems like a stupid thing to do, if you ask me. Nothing good ever came from instigating a fight between animals. And that's what you are," he added to her. "An animal."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Millie kicked her back legs forward and sat on her rear. The hump on her back was more pronounced when she sat like that.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Might've fooled Gordon but you don't fool me. Sitting on your butt like a people. You're a critter, and critters stay in the laundry room." He glanced over the arm of the couch. Sure enough, the laundry room door stood open. "Didn't mean to make you jump, though. I know how much that sucks. Even when it's Gordon. I'll be working on dinner and he'll be washing dishes and he'll drop something and it'll crash and god, I'll want to strangle him. And it's not his fault! It just startles the hell out of me. I hate it." He sighed and eased back down to the couch. "It sucks. But we understand each other, right? You don't spook me and I won't spook you."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Millie cooed softly.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I'm talking to a headhumper," he told her. "I gotta get out more."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He felt better for having said it out loud, though. He gingerly reached around her to grab his book and she got up, following the book to the couch, where she stood up on her back two feet and put her front talon onto the cushions.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"What?" he asked. "What do you want from me? I'm not Gordon. I'm not your buddy." She gave a coo that was almost a purr, and that he understood. "You want up here, do ya? Well, too bad. I don't snuggle with things that have designs on my head." He lay back and cracked open the book only to be interrupted by a flurry of movement and then a crash. Millie had tried and failed miserably to hop onto the couch. She sat up, braced herself, and did it again. "Alright, jesus. Knock it off before you splatter yourself on the furniture." He sat up and gave her a nervous once-over. How Gordon pick her up?</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>Like a hamburger.</em>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon was a very strange person, he thought to himself, and reached out to her.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Easy does it," he told her. Gordon had promised him she wasn't a poisonous breed but he didn't want to take chances. "I'm going to pick you up. I'm picking you up." He gripped her around the middle--<em>just like a hamburger</em>--and started to lift her when something solid touched his finger and he just about dropped her. One of her beaks, he realized. But she hadn't tried to bite him, at least not obviously.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He set her down on the couch beside him, and she snuggled down against his leg. His anxiety spiked, but as he looked down at her he thought he understood what Gordon liked about her. She was a lot like a little dog or a cat. Despite the thick scars that covered her and the missing leg and the general headcrab-ness of her she was kinda cute.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"No, she's not," he said aloud, and quickly went back to his book.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>When Gordon returned and saw her there on the couch he panicked as much as Barney had.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Sorry,* he signed, grabbing her up out of a sound sleep and running back to put her in the laundry room. *Accident. Sorry. Sorry.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Yeah, that's what we gotta talk about. I checked that door myself. It was latched."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon looked from him to the door and back. *How?*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Before he could say that he had no idea the laundry room doorknob rattled and turned. The door itself slowly swung open to reveal Millie hanging off the doorknob by her single front leg.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I guess that explains it," he said to Gordon. It wasn't until two in the morning that he sat up straight in bed and realized that if she could jump three feet straight in the air to grab the doorknob she could easily have jumped the eighteen inches to get onto the couch. He'd been bamboozled by a three-legged headcrab. That sneaky little sucker...</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>As time passed it seemed less important that Millie be locked in the laundry room. She moved slow and though loud noises still startled her they startled Barney too, so at least they were startled together.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*You like her,* Gordon signed one day as they sat together on the couch. Barney was reading to him out of his book, slowly but steadily, and at some point Millie had joined them.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"She's okay," Barney said, knowing full well that his words would have held more weight if he hadn't currently been holding Millie on his lap, scratching her favorite spot on the back of her head with his free hand. "She doesn't jump out at me like Lamarr does. I hate it when she does that."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Glad. You both happy now.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Yeah. Well."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Talked with someone today.* Gordon watched his face closely. *Maybe adopt Millie.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"That's great. Somebody nice, I hope."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Nice.* Gordon nodded. *Millie leaving-- both of us sad.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"She'll get over it."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Not Millie. You.*</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He put down the book to stare. "Me? You think I'm gonna be sad when she gets adopted?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon nodded solemnly.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I'm happy she might get adopted." He went back to his book and very pointedly did not look at Gordon.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The only sound was Millie's contented cooing. Her front talon kicked as he found what must have been a particularly itchy spot.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Maybe a little sad."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Gordon squeezed his shoulder. He didn't laugh at how dumb the whole thing was. He never laughed. Gordon was pretty great like that. It was one of the things he loved about him. Him and Millie both.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>*Love you,* Gordon signed.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Love you too." Barney rested his head against Gordon's and decided that right now he was just going to enjoy this afternoon.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And, his mind thus made up, he did.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p> </p>
  <p></p>
  <div>
    <p> </p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <p> </p>
  </div>
</div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>